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Cheri DiNovo’s not-quite run to lead the federal NDP: Walkom

An Ontario MPP bids — sort of — for the political job nobody much wants

Ontario New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo announces her candidacy for leadership of the federal NDP on Tuesday. "The NDP is so down in the dumps the fact anyone even shows interest in becoming leader is deemed newsworthy," writes Thomas Walkom. (Christopher Katsarov / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Ontario New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo became the latest noncontender to replace rejected leader Tom Mulcair on Tuesday when she announced what she called her “unofficial” candidacy.

She said she isn’t officially entering the race to become federal NDP leader because she thinks the $30,000 entry fee set by the party is undemocratic.

Besides, she told me in a telephone interview, she doesn’t have the money. In any case, she doesn’t really hunger for the job.

Should a stronger candidate who shares her views emerge, she said, she will drop her not-quite campaign. But if no one better can be found, DiNovo said, she might be forced to bite the bullet and make her candidacy official.

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“Let’s see who comes forward. If no one suitable comes forward, I may have to raise the money.”

DiNovo’s sort-of candidacy is of interest for two reasons.

First it underscores just how hesitant New Democrats are to bid for their party’s top job. Well-known figures within the party, including British Columbia MP Nathan Cullen and former Nova Scotia MP Megan Leslie have already said no.

Other names within the federal caucus, including Quebec MP Alexandre Boulerice and Manitoba MP Niki Ashton, are mentioned as possibilities. But none seems to be champing at the bit.

Given that the party was strong enough in the last Parliament to form the official opposition, this reluctance is, at one level, odd. But it also explains why DiNovo’s equally strange non-announcement made headlines across the country.

The NDP is so down in the dumps the fact anyone even shows interest in becoming leader is deemed newsworthy.

DiNovo’s move is also of interest because, in her own idiosyncratic way, she represents a significant strain of thought within the NDP.

A signatory to the LEAP manifesto, a document that calls for a ban on new oil pipelines as well as other measures to combat climate change, she argued the party has spent so much time and energy chasing power that it has forgotten its social democratic raison d’être.

She said the NDP should focus on environmental issues, even if that means opposing oil pipelines popular in Alberta.

She said it should focus on union issues, such as anti-scab laws. It should remember the NDP was formed, in part, as a labour party.

She said it should focus on social justice. Many existing NDP positions, such as support for pharmacare, are fine she said. But the party doesn’t push them hard enough.

Is her unofficial candidacy real?

In traditional terms, the answer is no. DiNovo didn’t round up nationally known party stalwarts to flank her at Tuesday’s announcement.

Conspicuously absent was former MP Peggy Nash, who until last October represented the federal counterpart of DiNovo’s provincial Parkdale-High Park riding.

DiNovo told me she hadn’t asked Nash — or any other high-profile New Democrat — to back her. “I want the grassroots, the people disenchanted with the NDP who have drifted away,” she explained.

Nor is she planning any cross-Canada trips to promote her unofficial candidacy. She says she can use social media to reach New Democrats outside Toronto. Besides, she can’t afford the air fare.

Nor is she bilingual, a real handicap for the would-be leader of a party that already holds 16 seats in Quebec and wants more.

“I’m working on it,” said DiNovo. “If a woman of colour, who is bilingual and supports democratic socialism, comes along, I’ll step aside,” she said.

That was one of the many comments DiNovo made Tuesday that suggest she isn’t serious — that at most she is a stalking horse for someone else.

Still, it would be unwise to dismiss her out of hand. As my Star colleague Robert Benzie has written, the former United Church minister gets things done at Queen’s Park.

More to the point, she is a formidable campaigner who, in the 2014 provincial election, managed to keep her riding from falling to Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.

The last federal and provincial elections left only two NDP legislators standing in Toronto. Cheri DiNovo, the reluctant, not-quite leadership candidate, is one of them.

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